"Ostentation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... best hypocrites in the earth. If Paine recanted, why should he denied "a little earth for charity?" Had he recanted, it would have been regarded as a vast and splendid triumph for the gospel. It would, with much noise and pomp and ostentation, have been heralded about ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... greater quantity of commodities; and the people as they can afford it, as they have more commodities to give for it, will naturally purchase a greater and greater quantity of plate. The quantity of their coin will increase from necessity, the quantity of their plate from vanity and ostentation, or from the same reason that the quantity of fine statues, pictures, and of every other luxury and curiosity, is likely to increase among them. But as statuaries and painters are not likely to be worse ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... Dowdeswell, seconded by Sir George Savile, and supported by their friends, will stand fair with the public, even though it should have been opposed by that list of names (respectable names, I admit) which have been printed with so much parade and ostentation in your papers. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... said. "These people have neither manners nor hearts. I told Mr. Shippen as much. And where does your general get all his money? It is vulgar, this waste. Look!" she said; "look there! It is well to feed the poor after a wedding; I like the old custom; but this is mere ostentation." It was true; there was a crowd of the neighbouring farm people about the detached kitchen, eager for the food and rum which I saw given daily in absurd profusion. My Aunt Gainor ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... complex works of man, Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan, No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clay the pile. From ostentation as from weakness free, It stands like the cerulean arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal from afar, Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give, Stand ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... the capital who had real faith in him. His repeated efforts to win Jerusalem mean nothing if we do not recognize that he hoped against hope that many of the people might yet turn and let him lead them. With some such purpose, therefore, he went up a little later without ostentation, and quietly appeared in the temple teaching. The effect of this unannounced arrival was that the opposition was not ready for him. The multitude was compelled to form an opinion of him for itself, and he had opportunity to make his own impression for a time, independently of official suggestion ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... of tithes was not called for by Mosaic law, 'every three days' (Revised Version), and that the use of leaven in burnt offerings was prohibited by it, and also that to call for freewill offerings was to turn spontaneousness into something like compulsion, and to bring ostentation into worship. All these characteristics spoiled the apparent religiousness, over and above the initial evil of disobedience, and warrant Amos's crushing equation, 'Your worship rebellion.' All are driven home by the last words of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... very fine house, and the gardens were reported to be beautifully kept up, but the owner was almost always in Italy, and had so seldom been at Rockstone that it was understood that all this was the ostentation of a man who did not know what to do with ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... die, left his corpse unburied. Perhaps the dogs that had licked his sores tore his flesh. A fine sight that would be from the rich man's door! The latter had to die too, for all his purple, and to be swathed in less gorgeous robes. His funeral is mentioned, not only because pomp and ostentation went as far as they could with him, but to suggest that he had to leave them all behind. 'His glory shall ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... confirmation of his opinions—I never spent a more agreeable day than this with Mr. Gresham. He converses well, and has a variety of information, which he pours forth liberally, and yet without the slightest ostentation: his only wish seems to be to entertain and inform those to whom he speaks—he has no desire to shine. In a few hours we went over a world of literature. I was proud to follow him, and he seemed pleased that I could sometimes ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... it rather grumpily. Most Englishmen dislike ostentation and display; and to Stafford the place seemed garish and "loud." Howard surveyed ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... arrival a lunch was given in our honour by the Governor at the Palace, a ramshackle old building, comfortably furnished, but with no attempt at ostentation. The household was more like that of an English country house, and there was none of the stateliness and ceremony here which characterised the Governor's Palace at Irkutsk. Nor was I sorry for it, for in ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... distinguished man, Lord Nieuport, ambassador of the Dutch Confederation,'—a letter, it is evident, which you bring forward to be read, not for any force of proof in it, for it has none, but merely in ostentation. He—and it shows the singular kindliness of 'the highly distinguished man' (for what but goodness in him should make him take so much trouble on your most unworthy account?)—goes to Mr. Secretary Thurloe. He communicates ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... third, which was composed of an ante-chamber, a dining-room, small drawing-room, and bedroom, so that she might, she thought, receive on this third story the visits of the cardinal, and on the fifth those of ladies of charity—that is to say, receive in luxury those who give from ostentation, and in poverty those who only desire to ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... eaten than the wheaten loaf; this, with salt fish and vegetables, was the common food of the population. Economy in domestic life was universal. In their manners, their dress, their private dwellings, they were little disposed to ostentation or display. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... repair any accident that might happen on the road; so, while, on the outside of the hearse, all wore the appearance of sadness; within, all was mirth; no bad image of the reverse of grandeur and the emptiness of human ostentation. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... and Mrs. Park. Those addressed to the three latter, being the most interesting, are here inserted at length, and cannot be read without considerable interest. They all of them bear strong traces of that deliberate courage without effort or ostentation, which distinguished his whole conduct; and his letter to Lord Camden breathes a generous spirit of self-devotion, highly expressive of the character and ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... and quite willing to submit himself to any nickname that could be found for him. He liked a rubber of whist, and was supposed to make something out of bets with bad players. He rode very carefully, and was altogether averse to ostentation and bluster in the field. But he could make a horse do anything when he wanted to sell him, and could on an occasion give a lead as well as any man. Everybody liked him, and various things were constantly said in ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... spectacle; peep-show, raree-show, gallanty-show; ombres chinoises[Sp]; magic lantern, phantasmagoria, dissolving views; biograph[obs3], cinematograph, moving pictures; panorama, diorama, cosmorama[obs3], georama[obs3]; coup de theatre, jeu de theatre[Fr]; pageantry &c. (ostentation) 882; insignia &c. (indication) 550. aspect, angle, phase, phasis[obs3], seeming; shape &c. (form) 240; guise, look, complexion, color, image, mien, air, cast, carriage, port, demeanor; presence, expression, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was very striking, for human nature was there stripped of all disguise and all self-deceit before the presence of death. Pride and ambition, ostentation and avarice—the fallacies of the world, the complacent lies of society, the hopes and griefs that were of earth alone—all unrealities, in short, had passed for these shivering, helpless beings, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... ring-covered fingers—the whole seeming to say, "Ahem! See how well dressed and how dignified I am!" The furnishings of the room are elegant and perhaps uncomfortable and unhealthful, since the master of the house would consider not so much the comfort and health of his guests as his own ostentation, "A terrible thing is dysentery," he would say to them, "but you are sitting in European chairs and that is something you don't ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... government has lost its form rather than its substance, for a family of patriotic princes, dear to the people, govern peaceably in the midst of the ancient and the newer liberties. In Holland are to be found riches without ostentation, freedom without insolence, taxes without poverty. The country goes on its way without panics, without insurrections,—preserving, with its fundamental good sense, in its traditions, customs, and freedom, the imprint of its noble origin. It is perhaps amongst all ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... that he scattered gold on this occasion, but found it to be only silver, and so thin, that all I had at first, being thousands of small pieces, had not weighed sixty rupees, of which I saved to the amount of twenty rupees, yet a good dishful, which I keep to shew the ostentation of this display of liberality; for, by my proportion, I think all he cast away could not exceed the value of an hundred pounds. At night he drinks with his nobles from rich plate, to which I was invited; but, being told that I must not refuse to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world: but let that pass. The very all of all is, but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy, that the King would have me present the princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal, to the ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... directness, the perspicuity, and the liveliness of Caesar's Commentaries or of the Duke of Wellington's Despatches. Montesquieu[1317] says of it:—"Hanno's Voyage was written by the very man who performed it. His recital is not mingled with ostentation. Great commanders write their actions with simplicity, because they receive more honour from facts than words." If we may take the work as a specimen of the accounts which Phoenician explorers commonly gave of their ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... entangled: his was a court of request without appeal, and he took pleasure in asserting its finality. For the convenience of suitors he allowed agents to practice in his court: these gentlemen had somewhat more legal knowledge than the judge, and often exasperated his antipathies by its ostentation. They would dwell on the dignity of his court: his decision was irrevocable; even the lord chancellor of England, they would say, was subject to the revision of a still higher court than his own, but the deputy judge advocate ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... tramp rendezvous located just outside the city limits, to be beyond police jurisdiction), in jails, on freights ... I found a feeling of sincere companionship ... a companionship that without ostentation and as a matter of course, shared the last cent the last meal ... when every cent was the last cent, every meal the last meal ... the rest depending on ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... jewelry worn more ornately, or with greater display, we might almost say ostentation, than in the age of Shakespeare. As a rule, in this period the precious stones were less considered than the elaborate goldsmith work in which they were placed. They were the adjuncts, rather than the ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... arrival, she has none of the petty stateliness that I had imagined; but on the contrary she has a degree of nature, and simple-heartedness, if I may use the phrase, that mingles well with her old-fashioned manners and harmless ostentation. She dresses in rich silks, with long waist; she rouges considerably, and her hair, which is nearly white, is frizzled out, and put up with pins. Her face is pitted with the small-pox, but the delicacy of her features shows that she may once have been beautiful; ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... was a charming house," cried the lieutenant, "cultivation, refinement, a sufficient competency, the whole style of the establishment free from ostentation, yet most comfortable; and Emily—Emily was the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the spirit of the English landscape is simple, and pastoral and mild, devoid, also, of high associations (for in the Highlands and Wales almost every spot which has the pride of memory is unfit for villa residence); and, therefore, all conspicuous appearance of its more wealthy inhabitants becomes ostentation, not dignity; impudence, not condescension. Their dwellings ought to be just evident, and no more, as forming part of the gentle animation and present prosperity which is the beauty of cultivated ground. ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... quite right. If I had Sir Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I should wear his crest upon my ring, and glory in my relationship, and I hope I should be a better man for it. I wouldn't put his arms upon my carriage, however, because that would mean nothing but ostentation. It would be merely a flourish of trumpets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody would know that, either, if my name chanced to be Boggs. In my library I might hang a copy of the family escutcheon as a matter of interest ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... trick the British so that they would lose all benefit of the breeze. The clouds that were coming up to windward seemed to threaten a squall, and driving sheets of rain were rapidly advancing toward the ship. With great ostentation, the "Constitution" was made ready for a severe gale. The enemy could see the nimble sailors taking in sail, and furling all the lighter canvas. Then the driving rain swept over the ship, and she was shut out of sight. Immediately all was activity in the tops of the British frigates. Reefs were ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that the ostentation of the rich is always putting costly pleasures within the reach of the refined not-rich. A piano in its time plays many parts, and figures in a variety of scenes. Like the more delicate and sympathetic kinds of human beings, it is naught unless ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the remote streets, in which those who would live in comfort and without ostentation, and who love serious reflection, delight to find a home. There were no shops along the dimly lighted street; one heard no sounds but of distant carriages, and of the steps of some of the ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... province, most of whom were collected within the beleaguered town, had been invited to a masqued ball, for it was the policy for Sir William Howe to hide the distress and danger of the period and the desperate aspect of the siege under an ostentation of festivity. The spectacle of this evening, if the oldest members of the provincial court circle might be believed, was the most gay and gorgeous affair that had occurred in the annals of the government. The brilliantly-lighted apartments were thronged with figures that seemed to have stepped ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... younger Drevet closed the classical period of portraits in engraving, as just before had closed the Augustan age of French literature. Louis XIV. decreed engraving a fine art, and established an academy for its cultivation. Pride and ostentation in the king and the great aristocracy created a demand which the genius of the age supplied. The heights that had been reached could not be maintained. There were eminent engravers still; but the zenith had been passed. Balechou, who belonged to ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner
... embassy that was sent from the neighbouring prince, who imagined that the fame of his exploits had struck the Arabians with terror, and disposed them to submission. The ambassador was introduced to the chief of the tribe, a venerable old man, undistinguished by any mark of ostentation from the rest, who received him sitting cross-legged at the door of his tent. He then began to speak, and, in a long and studied harangue, described the power of his master, the invincible courage of his armies, the vast profusion of arms, of warlike engines, and military stores, and concluded with ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... good mark between God's miracles and the devil's wonders. For Christ and his saints have their miracles always tending to fruit and profit. The devil and his witches and necromancers, all their wonderful works tend to no fruitful end, but to a fruitless ostentation and show, as it were a juggler who would for a show before the people play feats of skill ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... And founds his merit on our servile fears; Then we discard the workings of the heart, And nature's banish'd by mechanic art; Then, deeply read, our reading must be shown; Vain is that knowledge which remains unknown: Then Ostentation marches to our aid, And letter'd Pride stalks forth in full parade; 40 Beneath their care behold the work refine, Pointed each sentence, polish'd every line; Trifles are dignified, and taught to wear The robes of ancients with a modern air; ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... was looked upon as the brainy one of our family, took down his slate with a hint of scholarly ostentation. ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... a room at the inn in the village. The effort to sustain his customary vivacity was not encouraged by persons and circumstances about him. Lady Lundie's fidelity to the memory of the late Sir Thomas, on the scene of his last illness and death, persisted in asserting itself, under an ostentation of concealment which tried even the trained temper of Sir Patrick himself. Blanche, still depressed by her private anxieties about Anne, was in no condition of mind to look gayly at the last memorable days of her maiden life. Arnold, sacrificed—by ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... a brilliant purple. He wore a blue coat with bright buttons, upon which some letters were inscribed; and around his neck was fastened a ribbon of the same color, to which a medal was attached. This he displayed with something of ostentation whenever an opportunity occurred, and seemed altogether a person who possessed a most satisfactory impression of his own importance. In fact, had not this feeling been participated in by others, Mr. Billy Crow would never have been deputed by No. 13,476 to carry their warrant down to the west ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Something of practical patriarchal simplicity governed life in regions more remote from main routes of travel, which held, and indeed still hold, much of charm for the traveller from lands whose hospitality—as Britain or the United States—is the result often of ostentation or social necessity rather than that of native kindliness. This amiable trait of more or less pastoral communities, as Mexico and South America, tends naturally to disappear before the influence of the commercial element ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... perhaps, that there is more of ostentation than of real utility in ships of this vast and unwieldy burden, which are rarely capable of acting against an enemy; but if the building such contributes to preserve, among other nations, the notion of the British superiority in naval affairs, the expense, ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... such continued ostentation, of late years, has prevailed among men in ACTIVE life with regard to PUBLIC SPIRIT, and among those in SPECULATIVE with regard to BENEVOLENCE; and so many false pretensions to each have been, no doubt, detected, that men of the world are apt, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... ourselves for making even a distant allusion to one portion of Elinor's pleasures and labours, although more especially connected with home; since none could perform their religious duties with less ostentation, with more single-hearted sincerity—none could more carefully follow the precept, to "give with simplicity," than Miss Wyllys, and the niece she ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... wholy distitute of y^e means of salvation, as this man would make y^e world beleeve; for our reve^d Elder hath laboured diligently in dispencing the word of God unto us, before he came; and since hath taken equalle pains with him selfe in preaching the same; and, be it spoaken without ostentation, he is not inferriour to M^r. Lyford (& some of his betters) either in gifts or larning, though he would never be perswaded to take higher office upon him. Nor ever was more pretended in this matter. For equivocating, he may take it to him selfe; ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... business friends were still striving to outdo one another in the costliness of the jewelry they were giving her. The great houses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were still refraining firmly from anything that savoured of extravagance or ostentation. While he was with her the eleventh paper-knife came—from his mother's friend, the Duchess of Veauleglise. The Duke was overwhelmed with joy at the sight of it, and his delighted comments drove Germaine to the last extremity of exasperation. The result was that she begged him, with petulant ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... officer came into the room, and ordered a sergeant to take the name of every man who claimed United States protection, in order to obtain clothes for him. Soon the clothing came. It did not comprise a complete suit, but was extremely welcome. Never did I see a peacock strut with more ostentation than did some of the prisoners on donning the uniform. And it was worthy of pride. It was a token that we were not forsaken, but that a great nation was extending its protection over us. The ragged guards around, clad in their miserable butternut suits, growled many uncomplimentary allusions to ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... buildings had appeared without ostentation. There were twenty of them. A dozen of the twenty, for one reason or another, need receive no further mention. Of the remaining few, one was occupied by Sheriff Gage; two others by stores; one answered ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... mansion which he had built, putting to shame every other house in the place, gave an effect of ostentation to the Maddens as a family; it seemed only to accentuate the air of humility which enveloped Jeremiah as with a garment. Everybody knew some version of the many tales afloat which, in a kindly spirit, illustrated ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... excite it to civil war do in general but minister to it the same miserable kind of relief wherewith the wizards of Pharaoh mocked the Egyptian. We read that, when Moses had turned their waters into blood, those impious magicians, intending, not benefit to the thirsting people, but vain and emulous ostentation of their own art, did themselves also change into blood the water which the plague had spared. Such sad comfort do those who stir up war minister to the oppressed. But here where was the oppression? What was the favour which had not been granted? What was the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... known how to protect his interests. He loved money, but he loved also to spend it, especially in such a way as to make a great show with it. It was not true, however, that Saracinesca was miserly. He spent a large income without the smallest ostentation. ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... money hand over hand, became a rich and mighty man, and exalted his cocked hat upon "Change." He built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation, but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished, out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fulness of his vain-glory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it; and, as the ungreased wheels groaned ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... money by the handful, and spent it with a lavish ostentation. Paul continued his habit of riding about in cabs and dining in hotels. It was a bad commercial training, but he was not at the time of life to think of that. The days and nights were full. There were both labour ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... covered nearly a square mile, while his fortune was about $40,000,000. He employed 10,000 men at Essen, and over 7,000 at other places. He owned nearly 600 iron and coal mines, 6 smelting works, 14 blast furnaces, 5 steamers, and 140 steam-engines. He was a plain, industrious man, shunned all ostentation, refused titles, and took good care of his workmen. Yet was his business an honorable one? If the man who supplies alcoholic beverages to drunkards is condemned by the general sentiment of the temperate community, what should we think of one who supplies slung-shot, poison, and daggers ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... view Graeme detested Mr. Pixley, though he had never passed a word with him. He was too perfect, too immaculate. His "unco' guidness," as Lady Elspeth would have said, bordered on ostentation. The sight and sound of him aroused in some people a wild inclination towards unaccustomed profanity and wallowing in the mire. He was so undisguisedly and self-satisfiedly better than his fellows that one felt his long and flawless life almost in the nature ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... question of phallic worship, a certain pride and more or less private feeling of ostentation in the new expansion and development of the organs of virility seems to be almost normal at adolescence. "We have much reason to assume," Stanley Hall remarks, "that in a state of nature there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the new local development. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... With plain downright simplicity and free from all ostentation Peter carried this valuable ruby to the king in his waistcoat pocket, and presented it wrapped up in a piece ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... on me as a friend," urged the judge, who towered above him in the dim candle-light. "Here's comfort without ostentation. Don't tell me you prefer the tavern, with its corrupt associations!" Hannibal was silent, and the judge, after a brief moment of irresolution, threw open the door. Then he bent toward the small stranger, bringing his face ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... great weariness, an icy-sickening sense that life had palled upon her. She was tired of fashionable society. She was tired of polished, imperturbable men who sought only to please her. She was tired of being feted, admired, loved, followed, and importuned; tired of people; tired of houses, noise, ostentation, luxury. She was so tired ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... knew perfectly well that this was not what you meant. He did not go through this piece of folly in the sincere desire to avoid the other error of extravagance. Or, you are a country clergyman. You are annoyed, Sunday by Sunday, by a village lad who, from enthusiasm or ostentation, sings so loud in church as to disturb the whole congregation. You hint to him, as kindly as you can, that there is something very pleasing about the softer tones of his voice, and that you would like to hear them more frequently. But the lad sees through your civil way of putting ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... colors, the Jew of Algeria hid himself as if life were something he had stolen, and for which he must apologize all his days. Now, treated with the same liberality as any other colonist, the Jew indulges in every ostentation of dress except as to the color of the turban, which, in small towns like Bona, still preserves the black hue of former days of oppression. On Saturdays the children of Jacob fairly blaze with gold and gay colors. On their working days they line the principal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... deep uneasiness that would not be set aside. The young man had said that the Clouds were very wealthy. That Leslie was especially so. That when she was of age she would have a vast inheritance. There had been no sign of great wealth or ostentation in their living but if that were so then there was an insuperable wall ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... a splendid mansion (Jotomon) with forced labour requisitioned from the provinces, and for his wife a scarcely less magnificent residence (Kyogoku) was erected at the charges of the Emperor Go-Ichijo. At the approach of illness he took refuge in Buddhism, but even here the gorgeous ostentation of his life was not abated. He planned the building of a monastery which should prove a worthy retreat for his declining years, and it is on record that his order to the provincial governor was, "though you neglect your official duties, do not neglect to furnish materials and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... themselves beneath and around me as the lesser peaks of the Himalayas seen from Mount Everest. My eyes ache with the diversity of their shapes, the eccentricity of their styles, the irregularity of their altitudes. No man viewing them can continue blind to the independence of the American citizen, to the ostentation of his right of personal selection, to his individual caprice. They stand, a brick-and-iron commentary upon the competing ambitions ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... Anglo-Saxon house are few in number, a heal or hall, a bur or bedroom, and in some cases a cicen or kitchen, and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, laths, and plaster. But when we come to the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic buildings which William of Malmsbury assures us that the Normans introduced into this island; the house becomes more massive, and the rooms more numerous, and more diversified in their purposes. When we look at the furniture of the house, the difference is still more apparent. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... come! Thursday came and went; a beautiful, bright, sunny day, but with no signs of the merry boy whom all had begun to love, nor of the big black dog. The children had made all the needful preparations with much ostentation and bustle, and were in a state of excited happiness, ready for any gale. But the last hope had to be given up, as the old clock ticked away hour after hour. And at last Polly had to put Phronsie to bed, who wouldn't stop crying enough to eat her ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... is the opposite of this. It must have human notice. Ostentation is its very essence. Cease to notice it, and it will soon die. "I went about to establish mine own righteousness," says Paul, before he got the true Charity. Here was a grand opportunity for Pharisaic Saul. These Nazarenes, were they not everywhere spoken against? Was not this a grand opportunity ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... dwelling of approved architecture; erected in a healthy location with room enough around it to give air space, and a bit of out-of-doors to enjoy; tastefully furnished and decorated inside, but without ostentation or extravagance; occupied by a healthy, happy family of parents and children who care more for each other and for their neighbors than for selfish pleasure and display, and who are learning how to play a worthy part ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... business-like appearance than a registry office. The comedian overflows with details. For the covering of the floor, he explains, there are five distinct carpets, ranging in price from five guelders to twenty-five for the hire, according to the means or ostentation of the party. Thursdays are no holiday for the church officials, one couple being hardly united before the horses of the next are pawing the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... one had taken notice of up to that moment, and took from it a large quantity of broken biscuit, a lump of salt beef, several cocoa-nuts, a horn of gunpowder, and a bag of shot and ball—all of which he spread out in front of the fire with much ostentation. The satisfaction caused by this was very great, and even Muggins, in the fulness of his heart, declared that after all there were worse things than ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... Relation of Novels to Life,' contributed to the 'Cambridge Essays.' He has no fear of modern aesthetes before his eyes. His opinion is that life is too serious a business for tomfoolery and far too tragic for needless ostentation of sentiment. A novel should be a serious attempt by a grave observer to draw a faithful portrait of the actual facts of life. A novelist, therefore, who uses the imaginary facts, like Sterne and Dickens, as mere pegs on which to hang specimens ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... magnificence in securing both national and personal prestige. In part at least this was the cause of that habitual display which, while impressing, also roused the anger of the nobles, who regarded him as an upstart, and of the satirists of ecclesiastical ostentation and luxury. Secure in the confidence of the King, he never attempted to conciliate either popular sentiment or the rivals whom ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... company, an ingenious and learned gentleman read to him a letter of compliment which he had received from one of the Professors of a foreign University. Johnson, in an irritable fit, thinking there was too much ostentation, said, "I never receive any of these tributes of applause from abroad. One instance I recollect of a foreign publication, in which mention is made ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... de luxe. To the dinner parties at which I was present the same observation applies. The New York fashionable dinner, so far as its menu is concerned, seemed to me incomparably simpler than its fashionable counterpart in London. The only form of extravagance, or of what one might call ostentation, so far as I could see, was what would have been thought in London the multitude of superfluous footmen, and in houses like that of Lloyd Bryce even this feature was wanting. The only dinner which, within the limits of my own experience, represented ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... loudly heard around, And feeling bosoms shuddered at the sound; Though, we, on these occasions, truly know, The plaint is always greater than the woe. Some ostentation ever is with grief Those who weep ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... of her dependence upon her uncle, Louise managed to be of inestimable service. She performed her self-allotted tasks without ostentation. She had that rare quality of stimulating enthusiasm among the men—enthusiasm for their work and pride in giving faithful and energetic service—pride in accomplishing a little more each day than was asked or expected ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... wealth in places set apart for common enjoyment of refined pleasure is not in good taste." Mr. White wrote in 1881; would he have been able to be so complimentary to the opera audiences of 1908? What relation does the present extravagance of dress, the vulgar ostentation which Mr. White would have us believe was foreign to the taste of New York's cultured society in 1847, bear toward the support which opera has received since the Metropolitan Opera House was opened? The factors which are to determine the question seem to be marshaling ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the reverence paid by fools to rank and wealth. He was travelling this lonely coast on a tour of inspection, to visit and report upon a site where His Majesty's advisers had some design to plant a fort; and a fine ostentation coloured his progress here as through life. He had brought his coach because it conveyed his claret and his batterie de cuisine (the seaside inns were detestable); but being young and extravagantly healthy and, with all his faults, very much of a man, he preferred to ride ahead on his saddle-horse ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... professors whose lectures I have attended have mentioned me more than once, as one of the most assiduous and best informed students of the university; saying also that I deserved distinction. I do not tell you this from ostentation, but only that you may not think I lose my time, even though I occupy myself chiefly with the natural sciences. I hope yet to prove to you that with a brevet of Doctor as a guarantee, Natural History may be a man's bread-winner as well as the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... hut. This revival had the marks in it which we younger men had been told were the marks of a true revival, but from which many had shrunk because they were associated in our days with flaming advertisement, noise, and ostentation. ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... they attended the celebration of the games in showy apparel, with silk umbrellas held over their heads; and amongst other articles of dress, the principal of them wore an immense drab-coloured quaker's hat of the coarsest quality. So great were their ostentation and pride, that they would scarcely deign to speak to a ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to him, I can tell you! 'That's all ostentation,' I said. 'Why can't Regina and I begin life modestly? What do we want with a carriage to drive out in, and champagne on the table, and a footman to answer the door? We want to love each other and be happy. There are thousands of as good gentlemen as I am, in England, with wives ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... redemption; and that he had given tribute unto God, by alms and relief extended to them all, for his admission into the city. These things were in the letters, with many more ceremonies of a kind of holy ostentation. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... shouldn't do it as publicly as all that," said the unabashed Cash. "Trust me! No ostentation; just an explanatory report circulated in a subdued sort of way—and perhaps a strip of tan-bark down on the road outside the hotel—eh? I know how to do it. It'll pay, I tell you. And ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... minister an important opening; at first director of the treasury, then director-general of finance, M. Necker never received the title of comptroller-general, and was not admitted to the council. From the outset, with a disinterestedness not devoid of ostentation, he had declined the salary attached to his functions. The courtiers looked at one another in astonishment. It is easy to see that he is a foreigner, a republican, and a Protestant," people said. M. de Maurepas laughed. "M. Necker," he declared, "is a maker of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... on the Pies That Mother Used To Make, a line of conversation that in these modern days has broken up many an otherwise happy home. Socially the time had its draw-backs, but even in that respect there were advantages. The fact that we had no next-door neighbors enabled us to live without ostentation. I have discovered that much of the trouble in the world to-day arises from a love of showing-off, and of course, if there is no one about to show-off to, you don't indulge in that sort of foolishness. ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... trifles, which she chose with leisurely gratification of her taste. It surprised Alma to see this extravagance; one would have thought the purchaser had never known restricted means, and dreamt of no such thing; she bought what she happened to desire, as a matter of course. And this was no ostentation for Alma's benefit. Evidently Sibyl had indulged herself with the same freedom throughout her travels; for she had brought back a museum of beautiful and curious things, which must have cost a good deal. Perhaps for the first time in her life Alma experienced a sense of indignation at the ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... think, often do well, when considering the superb ostentation of Duerer's workmanship, with its superabundance of curve and flourish, its delight in its own ease and grace, to think of those young men among his ancestors who made their living from horses on the wind-swept plains ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... new government, and which contributed so much to its establishment, for it would have been very easy to have lowered the presidential office by a false idea of republican simplicity. It would have been equally easy to have made it odious by a cold seclusion on the one hand, or by pomp and ostentation on the other. With his usual good judgment and perfect taste, Washington steered between the opposing dangers, and yet notwithstanding the wisdom of his arrangements, and in spite of their simplicity, he did not escape calumny on account of them. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... ought to be going," answered Mrs. Flagg, with a little show of ostentation, and looking over her shoulder to be sure that Miss Pickett had risen too. "We've got some little ways to go," she added with dignity. "We should be pleased to have you call an' see us in case you have occasion ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... their best silk and their point-laces on ordinary occasions. Something is kept sacred. And I do think there is more real economy among them, than among those who absolutely have a need for it. If wastefulness could once come to be considered a sin of ostentation and low-breeding, it would not have so many followers. Some people do it because they are afraid of being thought mean; but if they could be trained to that bravery of spirit that makes a work of beauty out of the poorest and smallest things because they are well ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... allied conceit and ostentation, shows itself in proportion to the size of the writing, the taller and more flourished the upstrokes and the longer the downstrokes, the greater the self-assertiveness. The flourish beneath the signature will be very pronounced, often an elaborate ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... preserve my Child from realizing the dreary picture—as soon as you can keep a Wife you must Marry with all possible speed—that is as soon as you find a very Amiable woman. She must be a good daughter and fond of Domestick life—and pious, without ostentation, for remember no Woman without the fear of God, can either make a good Wife or a good Mother—freethinking Men are shocking to nature, but from an Infidel Woman Good Lord deliver us. I have thought more of it than you have done—for I have two or three presents carefully [laid] ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... like a gigantic mass, of valour, ostentation, fury, affection and wild revolutionary manhood, this Danton, to his unknown home. He was of Arcis-sur-Aube; born of 'good farmer-people' there. He had many sins; but one worst sin he had not, that of Cant. No hollow Formalist, deceptive and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... victory of Navarino, by which the murderous Turk was driven off the sea, rose boyhood's remembrances of the fashionable "Navarino bonnets," with their colossal flaring fronts, with beds of artificial flowers set between brims and cheeks, making rivalry of color amid vast ostentation of bows and ribbon. With his glass, he could discern, at one point upon the hillside, the hut of a hermit, who had discovered that man cannot live upon history alone, but that beans and potatoes are desirable. The practical ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... labours and studies themselves, which required such elaborate and splendid arts of delivery, if we would fully satisfy ourselves, as to whether this author really had any purpose after all in bringing them in here beyond that of mere ostentation, and for the sake of completing his muster-roll of the sciences. Above, we see an intimation, that the divisions of the subject are, after all, not so 'curious' but that the inquiry might possibly be resumed again in other connections, and in the particular connection specified, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... blue. He wears his hair in a becoming cue, and from his forehead it is turned back, and powdered in a manner which adds to the military air of his appearance. He displays a native gravity, but devoid of all appearance of ostentation. His uniform dress is a blue coat with two brilliant epaulets, buff-colored underclothes, and a three-cornered hat with a black cockade. He is constantly equipped with an elegant small-sword, boots and spurs, in readiness to mount his ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... huts were twenty miles apart. In such isolation there is no rivalry of ostentation, and men care only to live. One day we came to a log house. The occupant had several hundred acres of very good land, and only a half acre under cultivation. He was absent at a county court for amusement. All that I could see ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... ridicule of some affected ladies of the period, who pretended, with rather too much ostentation, to embrace the doctrines of Platonic Love. Mrs. Mary Astell, a learned and worthy woman, had embraced this fantastic notion so deeply, that, in an essay upon the female sex, in 1696, she proposed a sort of female college, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... course. They must have said something about me, as, for instance: "Especially to be remarked is the noble altruism of Lieut. Henry, who on more than one march has been observed to take his pack, containing all his worldly goods, off his back and to hand it without ostentation to some lucky driver of a limber, saying, 'Take it, my lad; your need is greater than mine.'" Or again, referring to my later career: "The pen is mightier than the sword, but Lieut. Henry's indelible pencil, when engaged ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... cabin door and showed an interior, equally simple but well joined and fitted,—a marvel of neatness and finish to the frontier girl's eye. There were shelves and cupboards and other conveniences, yet with no ostentation of refinement to frighten ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... exalt himself; others, that were big with desires of ostentation, did soon follow his example, making themselves captains and heads of the people, and built them strong holds for the supportation of their glory. But they did it, as I said, by Nimrod's example; wherefore it is said they went "out of that land." Just ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to which, no doubt, he has so much ow'd that happy Preservation of his Characters, for which he is justly celebrated. Great Genius's, like his, naturally unambitious, are satisfy'd to conceal their Art in these Points. 'Tis the Foible of your worser Poets to make a Parade and Ostentation of that little Science they have; and to throw it out in the most ambitious Colours. And whenever a Writer of this Class shall attempt to copy these artful Concealments of our Author, and shall either think them ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... exhibiting his long, determined lip. At forty he was already bald, and after he was sixty he always wore indoors a black skull-cap. Scrupulously cleanly, in his dress he was point-device. Without the least ostentation, his clothes were invariably faultless. From young manhood he had thought that it is due to one's self and to one's friends to look one's best; and he had also realized the practical value of a good appearance. Often impressing this on his wife and daughters, he would have them at all times ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... training and ability. Since the best time to acquire these is when we are young, it may be necessary for a while to practice the very opposite of ostentation—self-sacrifice. If your husband is a professional man and you have married early, he may still be working for an advanced degree. This entails fees and—what is even more exacting—time. It means sacrifice—giving up social engagements and many ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... to put them at their ease.—That was the case with Louis XIV.[1286]—polite to everybody, always affable with men, and sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some times gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... attention to the squaws, that he is without natural feeling, or manliness of character. In some respects his chivalrous devotion to the sex is, perhaps, in no degree inferior to that of the class which makes a parade of such sentiments, and this quite as much from convention and ostentation, as from any other motive. The red man is still a savage beyond all question, but he is a savage with so many nobler and more manly qualities, when uncorrupted by communion with the worst class of whites, and not degraded by extreme ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... and without thought of ostentation, for her parents' riches had come when she herself was so young that she had no remembrance of the little house in the manufacturing town, but looked as a matter of course upon the luxuries with which she was surrounded. It never occurred ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... becomes unseemly, on account of the scandal which ensues therefrom, if the corrector's sin be well known, because it would seem that he corrects, not out of charity, but more for the sake of ostentation. Hence the words of Matt. 7:4, "How sayest thou to thy brother?" etc. are expounded by Chrysostom [*Hom. xvii in the Opus Imperfectum falsely ascribed to St. John Chrysostom] thus: "That is—'With what object?' Out of charity, think you, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... some while with no great hope of life, but youth at length got the victory of sickness. Palladius, having gotten his health, Kalander, who found in him a piercing wit, void of ostentation, high-erected thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy, and a behaviour so noble as gave a majesty to adversity, and enamoured with a fatherly love towards him, proceeded to tell ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... bought his shares. Some who affected to regard him simply as a man of money were content to get only his name to any enterprise. Courted by his superiors, quoted by his equals, and admired by his inferiors, he bore his elevation equally without ostentation or dignity. Bidden to banquets, and forced by his position as director or president into the usual gastronomic feats of that civilization and period, he partook of simple food, and continued his old habit of taking a cup of coffee with milk and ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... chooses to omit this essential point, he expresses the most anxious solicitude to clear himself of the charges that might be made against him, of the artifices of ostentation, and of corrupt influence. To discover, if possible, the ground for apprehending such imputations, your Committee adverted to the circumstances in which he stood at the time: they found that this letter was dispatched about the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... quoth the other, 'He could have given thee no truer nor better counsel. Thou knowest thou lovest no one, and the honours and services thou renderest others, thou dost not for love that thou bearest them, but for pomp and ostentation. Love, then, as Solomon bade thee, and thou shalt be loved.' On this wise, then, was the froward wife corrected and the young ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the brilliant sculptors who succeeded him lost influence in their turn. With the development of sculpture, which during Michael Angelo's lifetime acquired a technical skill to which Donatello never aspired, the tomb became a vehicle for ostentation and display; and there was a reaction towards the harsher symbols of death. Instead of the quiet mourner who really mourns, we have the strident and professional weeper—a parody of sorrow. Tier upon tier these prodigious ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... a Royal Palace, magnificently built with brick by Cardinal Wolsey in ostentation of his wealth, where he enclosed five very ample courts, consisting of noble edifices in very beautiful work. Over the gate in the second area is the Queen's device, a golden Rose, with this motto, "Dieu et mon Droit:" on the inward side of ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... father's house in Tenth Street, voted in that district, spent a month every year with the Gerards, read a Republican morning newspaper, and judiciously enlarged the family reservation in Greenwood—whither he retired, in due time, without other ostentation than half a column in the Evening Post, which paper he ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... insignificant Hatton. He had progressed fast, though another was soon to beat him in swiftness of advancement. He had gathered wealth and power. He was profuse in his application of both. Much of his gains went in ostentation. He was fond of exquisite armour, gorgeous raiment, lace, embroideries, furs, diamonds, and great pearls. As early as 1583 he must have begun to indulge his taste. On April 26 in that year the Middlesex Registers show that Hugh Pewe, gentleman, was tried for the theft of 'a jewel worth L80, a hat ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... She had taken off her out-door things, and was dressed in a very plain, brown gown, which fitted closely to her figure. At her throat she wore a little bunch of sweet autumn violets, with one little green leaf, fastened into her dress by a gold brooch. It was the very ostentation of simplicity, yet, with that noble carriage of her head and shoulders, and those massive coils of golden-brown hair, nobody could have failed to remark the distinction of her appearance, nor to recognise the fact that there is a kind of beauty ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... other hand however it is certain, that much of the ostentation and a multitude of the luxuries which subsist in European and Asiatic society are just topics of regret, and that, if ever those improvements in civilisation take place which philosophy has essayed to delineate, there would be a great abridgment of the manual labour that we now see around us, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... little canvas bag, considerably soiled from much handling, such as is used by banks for coin, a sturdy, matter-of-fact, every-day sort of canvas bag, with nothing about it of hauteur, no air of self-importance or ostentation, to betray the fact that it was the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... of all the young persons who approached her. These good qualities, her liberality above all, together with a simplicity of thought and character, which formed a beautiful contrast to the depth of acquired knowledge which she was well-known to possess,—these, and her total want of ostentation, made her superiority be pardoned among her companions. Still there was notice taken of some peculiarities, exaggerated perhaps by envy, which seemed to draw a mystical distinction between the beautiful Hermione and the mere mortals with whom she lived and conversed. In ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... at Elvas with all military honours, and a banquet, by order of Mello, formerly ambassador here. It was handsome in him, but must have distressed her, who is so void of ostentation and love of show. Miss Boyle,(767) who no more than Miss Pulteney,(768) has let herself be snapped up by lovers of her fortune, is going to Italy for a year ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... their loudly expressed discontent over petty disappointments as to the fashion and color of their attire, their evident satisfaction at becoming and rich clothing, all point to their wonderful love of ostentation and their vanity—a vanity which fairly shines with smirking radiance out of some of the masculine faces in the "bedizened and brocaded" portraits of dignified Bostonians in Harvard Memorial Hall, and from many of the portraits of ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to move in the House for a monument for Lord Collingwood in St Paul's, next to Nelson's. Of course the Body, which has arrived in the Thames, will be deposited in that Church, and the funeral must be splendid without ostentation—at the expense of the executors, or rather of the family." It was not, however, till May 8th that Mrs Stanhope was enabled to furnish her son with full details of the manner in which the intended ceremony was ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... what is brought to her hands. She will see that no one is overlooked when a canvass is made for any object; that pledges are redeemed; that the way is made easy for the poor to give without embarrassment and the rich without ostentation. She will see that all moneys are forwarded as designated and that they go through the ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 8, August, 1889 • Various
... features; but they are still so perfect, that fancy, associating their past bloom with their present languor, supplies perhaps as much to the mind as is lost by the eye. She suffers without complaining, and mourns without ostentation; and hears her father spoken of with such solemn silent floods of tears, that she looks like the original of Dryden's beautiful ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... because the physicians and surgeons, having opened his body, declared, from the signs that they found, that he had been poisoned, which made his death more regrettable. [34] The Audiencia buried the governor in the monastery of St. Augustine at Manila, with the pomp and ostentation due to his person and offices. Then, again taking charge of the government, the Audiencia despatched the vessels to Nueva Espana, whence advice was sent to his Majesty of the taking of Maluco and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... political meaning, for each was equal in the sight of the law; each had a vote; each was eligible to every office. But when the fall of Carthage freed Rome from all rivals, and conquest after conquest filled the treasury, increased luxury made the means of ostentation more greedily sought. Office meant plunder; and to gain office men bribed, and bribed every day on a vaster scale. If we said that 'optimates' signified the men who bribed and abused office under the banner of the Senate and its connections, and that 'populares' ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... spent in what seemed to me the very ostentation of success, another man was got to the wickets. This was Stumps, one of the professionals, who was not quite so much like a Minerva, though he, too, was prodigiously greaved. Jack again set his ball, snap went ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... with diligence in a year or two; and the continual succession of scholars upon a moderate taxation for their diet, lodging, and learning, would be a sufficient constant revenue for maintenance of the house and the professors, who should be men not chosen for the ostentation of critical literature, but for solid and experimental knowledge of the things they teach such men; so industrious and public spirited as I conceive Mr. Hartlib to be, if the gentleman be yet alive. But it is needless to speak further of my thoughts ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... [352] How bright a scene of industry, when compared with the grime and squalor of the English factory-town, where the human and the inanimate machine grind out their yearly mountains of iron-ware and calico, in order that the employer may vie with his neighbours in soulless ostentation, and the workman consume his millions ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... honours; he called him "cousin," and acknowledged his claim to be descended from the Scottish family of Bruce. From that time Cotton quartered the royal arms of Scotland with his own, and adopted the name of Bruce, "not," says Collins in his Baronetage, "in arrogance and ostentation, but in distinction to those of the name of Cotton of other families . . . and in a grateful sense of the divine favour for that extraction, and to excite an emulation in his issue to follow the virtues of such glorious ancestors." His descent is clearly traced in the history of Connington Castle ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... to this grade of society that judge Clemens and his family belonged, but his means no longer enabled him to provide either the comforts or the ostentation of his class. He settled his family and belongings in a portion of a house on Hill Street—the Pavey Hotel; his merchandise he established modestly on Main Street, with Orion, in a new suit of clothes, as clerk. Possibly the clothes gave Orion ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... development, it is still useless and absurd to tell people to make use of intellectual and moral resources which they have not yet got. It is as vain to preach to the majority of the well-to-do the duty of abstinence from wastefulness, rivalry, and ostentation as it is vain to preach to the majority of the badly-off abstinence from alcohol; without such pleasures their ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... collar of which a close look revealed two much-battered and faded stars, indicating his rank of major-general. He wore a black "slouch" hat, the brim well down over his face, and rode along with a single orderly, without the least ostentation. The men of the other regiments knew him and broke out into a cheer, at which he promptly doffed his hat and swung it at the boys. His hat off, we recognized the handsome author of the "Burnside" whiskers. He was not only very popular with his own corps—the Ninth—but with ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... of money displayed itself in gaiety of appearance, and wantonness of expence, and introduced me to the acquaintance of those whom the same superfluity of fortune had betrayed to the same licence and ostentation: young heirs who pleased themselves with a remark very frequently in their mouths, that though they were sent by their fathers to the university, they were not under the necessity of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... live—be it only for an hour, and though we must lay all else aside—to make others smile. The sacrifice is only in appearance; no one finds more pleasure for himself than he who knows how, without ostentation, to give himself that he may procure for those around him a ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... chubby-faced little man, astride the sill, a pistol displayed with ostentation in ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... disposition," whose life had been joined to savages, and who had for years had "neither servants, clothes nor fare which did not savor more of meanness than of ostentation," and who was of such natural timidity that it took him a week "to make up his mind to go to an audience" with Monseigneur de Conti, is summoned to an interview with ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... what is more absurd, than that a ragged old Fellow, that has not a Coat to his Back, but what is so ragged that he may be ashamed to put it on, should every now and then change his Rags, as though he design'd to shew his Beggary by Way of Ostentation: And those Affectators of Variety seem equally ridiculous, who, when they have spoken barbarously once, repeat the same Thing much more barbarously; and then over and over again much more unlearnedly. This is not to abound with Sentences, but Solaecisms: ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... a crime; I will therefore speak to your Excellency the language of freedom and sincerity, without disguise. I am aware, however, those who differ from me in political sentiments may, perhaps, remark, I am stepping out of the proper line of my duty; and they may possibly ascribe to arrogance or ostentation, what I know alone is the result of the purest intention. But the rectitude of my own heart, which disdains such unworthy motives; the part I have hitherto acted in life; the determination I have formed of not taking any share in public business ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... transcribe the printed accounts, and it may be sufficient to notice a remarkable spot, which left a deep and lasting impression on my memory. From Zurich we proceeded to the Benedictine Abbey of Einfidlen, snore commonly styled Our Lady of the Hermits. I was astonished by the profuse ostentation of riches in the poorest corner of Europe; amidst a savage scene of woods and mountains, a palace appears to have been erected by magic; and it was erected by the potent magic of religion. A crowd of palmers and votaries was prostrate before the altar. The title and ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... the house was one that any doll agent would have been justified in describing as a "most desirable family residence"; and it had been furnished with a lavishness that bordered on positive ostentation. In the bedroom there was a washing-stand, and on the washing-stand there stood a jug and basin, and in the jug there was real water. But all this was as nothing. I have known mere ordinary, middle-class ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... speak Me sufficiently, and all the acts That I have wrought upon his suffering Land; Should I then boast! where lies that foot of ground Within his whole Realm, that I have not past, Fighting and conquering; Far then from me Be ostentation. I could tell the world How I have laid his Kingdom desolate By this sole Arm prop't by divinity, Stript him out of his glories, and have sent The pride of all his youth to people graves, And made his Virgins ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... tell you of the famous men she has known for years, and how she has found the most celebrated of them simple in their tastes, and free from ostentation—"in fact it is always so, is it not, with les hommes celebres? C'est toujours comme ca, monsieur, toujours!" and mentions one who has grown gray in the service of art and can count his decorations from half a dozen governments. Madame will wax enthusiastic—her ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... in attitude. The pictures of this class, even of religious subjects, have accordingly but little to attract the eye, and when they selected scenes from ancient mythology, and allegories decked out with an ostentation of learning, the result ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... elders, a committee called on Mauer and represented to him that such a thing would be a gross violation of the severe laws respecting the simple style of building used in the settlement, and would give cause for great offence. The inhabitants of the town must be content to live without ostentation and show, abiding by the general customs, and conducting themselves as ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... as the touchstone of all success; already the fatal might of this idea is beginning to spread; it is replacing the finer type of Southerner with vulgar money-getters; it is burying the sweeter beauties of Southern life beneath pretence and ostentation. For every social ill the panacea of Wealth has been urged,—wealth to overthrow the remains of the slave feudalism; wealth to raise the "cracker" Third Estate; wealth to employ the black serfs, and the prospect of wealth to keep them ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois |
